Gather round, girlfriends, because I’m here to tell you a story that involves nude pics of a balding 55-year-old man, two people cheating on their spouses and Donald Trump. The weird part? This is a positive story. Stay with me.

The 55-year-old man I refer to is Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, who has a net worth of $134 billion. He’s probably come across your radar recently after he announced his plans to divorce his wife of 25 years, Mackenzie Bezos. Lots of people gossiped and giggled. Was he cheating with his best friend’s wife Lauren Sanchez? Who will get all the cash in the divorce? What will happen to Amazon stocks? Yada yada. Interesting, but only in a salacious, tabloidy sort of way.

What is much more fascinating is what happened today. Today something mind-blowing occurred that transforms Bezos from a hugely successful but otherwise fairly unexciting businessman into a bona fide feminist hero. Because Bezos has come forward and alleged publicly that he has been a victim of ‘sextortion’ and he’s not going to take it lying down.

What is sextortion?

Sextortion is when someone blackmails you by threatening to release private, nude pics or messages unless you do something they want - usually handing over money, releasing information or even sending more naked images. The numbers of victims are hard to measure as it’s a crime surrounded by shame and secrecy, but we do know that in July 2018, the FBI received 13,000 more sextortion complaints than it had in the previous month. And in the UK, more than 1,300 cases were reported in 2017, which was three times the number they received in 2015.

We know that many sextortion targets are female and many are underage.

And we also know that a person targeted by sextortion is very likely to give into the blackmailers’ demands rather than risk their private photos and correspondence going public.

Not our hero Jeff Bezos. Not only did he admit he was being sextorted but he stood up and called the people allegedly blackmailing him out, even though that meant telling the whole world exactly what was in the naked photos and explicit texts that they were - allegedly - threatening to reveal.

It was a move that only someone with his power could make, and it may well save millions of others from the threat of sextortion in the future.

Here’s what happened

It’s a bit complex but the fist bump at the end is worth it. Trust me.

As well as founding Amazon, Jeff Bezos also owns The Washington Post, one of the most respected and influential newspapers in the world.

The Post has been one of the leading publications attacking President Donald Trump for, well, lots of things, but the relevant thing in this case is his connections to another, far less lauded newspaper, The National Enquirer.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, executives on The National Enquirer were paid hush money by then-candidate Trump’s lawyer to buy salacious stories from women who had affairs with Trump - in particular an adult entertainer called Stormy Daniels - and then bury or ‘kill’ the stories rather than publishing them, thereby saving the would-be president from scandal.

President Donald Trump, Microsoft CEO Stya Nadella and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos attend a meeting of the American Technology Council in the State Dining Room of the White House June 19, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)Source:Whimn

The Washington Post has regularly reported on this story.

Turns out The National Enquirer is less than pleased with the Washington Post’s coverage of their shady behaviour on this and a number of other matters and so decided to retaliate against Bezos directly.

As Bezos wrote in an explosive, tell-all post on medium.com, an executive at AMI Media (the company who owns The National Enquirer) yesterday sent the Amazon founder an email that threatened to release a series of embarrassing and personal photos of Mr Bezos and his girlfriend Lauren Sanchez if he didn’t order his editors to stop investigating the paper and its connections to the president.

The money shot

The photos they'd allegedly threatened to publish, as Bezos outlined in graphic detail, included “a below the belt selfie — otherwise colloquially known as a ‘d*ck pic,' a shirtless photo of Bezos with his “semi-erect manhood penetrating the zipper” of his pants, a naked selfie of Bezos and a picture of his girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez, smoking a cigar “in what appears to be a simulated oral sex scene”.

But rather than give in to the Enquirer’s demands, which would have meant forcing his editorial staff at The Washington Post to print a retraction about their reporting that they did not believe, Bezos chose to publish every word of the alleged threat, including the details of what was in the photos, thereby exposing the blackmailers and destroying the power of the photos they held.

“Of course I don’t want personal photos published, but I also won’t participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favors, political attacks, and corruption,” Bezos wrote.

“If in my position I can’t stand up to this kind of extortion, how many people can?” he added.

And that’s why we damn well love the guy.

Good for @JeffBezos for going public with the National Enquirer "blackmail" attempt. I don't know if what the Enquirer did is illegal, but it certainly seems slimy and unjournalistic. His Medium article is well worth a read (though it made my laptop blush) https://t.co/U1MlJ2rbcT

Of course most of us are unlikely to ever be blackmailed by The National Enquirer or any other major organisation but personal sextortion is a very real threat that happens to thousands of people all over the world. It renders its victims almost completely powerless because the nude photos being released to friends, family and employers is a risk that is almost too large for most victims to take. So they routinely give in to the blackmailers’ demands.

By using his power and position to stand up to this alleged blackmail, Jeff Bezos turned the tables on anyone else considering using sexual images to threaten other people.

He’s called out that sick douche who hacked your phone when you stayed at his place, stole some nudes and is now threatening to send them to your friends.

He’s made that guy who’s angry that you rejected him after one date, and is promising to send that single nude selfie you messaged him to your boss, think very very hard about whether it’s a good idea.

It’s drawn attention to the insidious nature of sextortion, which can come in the form of email phishing, of hackers using webcams to record masturbation sessions or breaking into computers or phones to steal sensitive files.

He’s shown sextortion victims everywhere that you are not the one who’s in the wrong for taking a nude pic or sending a sexy text in the first place. They’re ordinary, everyday things that so many of us do. The bad guy is the creep who thinks he can use them to hold you to ransom.

Jeff Bezos will go down in history as the man who changed the face of online retail forever. But today he also became the man who said “Yeah, so, turns out people share dick pics with their girlfriend. Big. Effing. Deal.” And for that, we salute him.

See, I told you this was a good story. Jeff Bezos, from women everywhere, here is your honourable Pink Pussy Hat and lifetime front row seats to every Hannah Gadsby gig ever. You are one of us, friend.

And to celebrate, I’m off to blow $500 on things I don’t need on Amazon.

If you think you’re a victim of sextortion, contact The Australian Cyber Crime Reporting Network (ACORN).